Lightweight bottles made of a saturated polyester resin have recently become popular because of their tendency to resist deterioration and to withstand attack of the liquid contained therein. Moreover, saturated polyester resin bottles are widely used because they do not generate poisonous gasses when burned. However, these bottles typically are very lightweight and thin-walled and thus do not satisfactorily resist dimensional changes when their interior is subjected to vacuum conditions. For example, when a saturated polyester resin bottle is filled and sealed with a hot liquid such as a liquid sterilized at a high temperature, subsequent contraction of the liquid upon cooling results in an evacuation of the bottle which tends to deform the bottle walls. Such deformation typically concentrates at weaker portions of the bottle walls resulting in an irregular and commercially unacceptable appearance of the bottle. Moreover, if the deformation occurs in the vicinity of attachment of a label to the bottle, the appearance of the label is also adversely affected.